5 ms·

The article does a good job of refuting your points, I'm surprised you made them having read it. You don't want to give people a sense of false hope because it

The article does a good job of refuting your points, I'm surprised you made them having read it. You don't want to give people a sense of false hope because it discourages compliance with interventions with known effectiveness, like social distancing.

Consultant32452 6y ago
>...because it discourages compliance with interventions with known effectiveness It's been very disheartening watching so many of our essential institutions toss aside their credibility this last year. I wish I had to words to express how dangerous this is moving forward.
- ThalesX 6y ago
  I'm not from the US, but I feel the same way. The all powerful European Union just gives me a sense of despair after how they handled this crysis; I feel like I should start building my life with the assumption that I am alone in time of crysis.
  - llampx 6y ago
    It showed me that failed German politicians go to the EU and become High-Ranking officials there, possibly because Germany is the most powerful country in the EU.
    - dmichulke 6y ago
      It showed me there are people in power that - together with an army of legal advisers - haven't ever read or written a single private economy delivery contract in their life. I don't know who else was involved but it certainly wasn't just von der Leyen, this was complete institutional failure. Probably as well the most effective Brexit propaganda you can imagine.
      - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
        Hardly. Vaccine procurement was never supposed to be a core EU competency. But the EU still managed to negotiate good faith contracts with a number of suppliers. Of those suppliers, only AstraZeneca acted with bad faith to excuse non-delivery. The other suppliers - having the sense to understand Covid is a global problem, not a national one - didn't. The UK then used its gamble on an untested schedule - the gap was originally supposed to be weeks, not months - to turn vaccination into a propaganda exercise. Meanwhile the British variant, which appeared because the UK failed to lock down properly in the first place, is still causing tens of thousands of deaths across the EU. Institutional failure you say? Indeed it is - on the British side. If the UK had acted rationally and responsibly a year ago, there would have been no need for vaccine nationalism.
        the-dude 6y ago
        Is it possible you feel rejected? > to turn vaccination into a propaganda exercise. This is an absurd claim.
        fakedang 6y ago
        Lol, keep kicking the ball to the other side while not seeing the EU's own mistakes. The UK started vaccinating its citizens right after Pfizer Phase 3 was confirmed. The US, UK and Israel are actually overpaying for the Pfizer vaccine, while the EU resorted to haggling on price. Of course, misers always get pushed to last.
        makomk 6y ago
        This seems exactly backwards. The EU's involvement in vaccine and PPE procurement was at least partially a propaganda exercise to try and undo the damage done when member states with more manufacturing capacity cut off the supply to other states with a more desperate immediate need like Italy and the EU was impotent to stop it. Which was a potential existential threat - the whole purpose of the EU was to encourage trade and interdependence between European states and ban them from using protectionism to ensure the existence of local manufacturers, and now, when a crisis had hit, this was literally killing people Changing the vaccination schedule in the UK, on the other hand, was an informed gamble that - based on what was known about the vaccine at the time - would likely result in much fewer people dying and being hospitalized than sticking to the original, basically arbitrary, vaccination schedule. Also, blaming AstraZeneca for the EU falling behind the UK in vaccination is 100% pure propaganda. As far as I can tell, at this point their vaccine deliveries to the UK are about as far behind schedule as the ones to the EU, and the UK is a lot more reliant on AZ vaccinations than the EU. The EU just didn't order enough - their initial AZ order was about the same size as the UK one, for a much larger population, meaning they ended up with less production capacity relative to their population than the UK. The reason it seems like the UK vaccination scheme is going to plan is because the UK contract had contractual clauses with teeth requiring AZ to promptly notify them of how much they were actually going to deliver once they had their plants up and running, and the UK's plan was based on the actual delivery schedule. The EU... didn't. At all. I don't think they understand this even now, judging from all the conspiracy theories about how the yield problems are an excuse and AZ are really just sneaking off doses to the UK.
  - estaseuropano 6y ago
    The EU is built for slown policy making, not crisis. There is a lot of complexity in wrangling 27 governments to take a joint decision that a single country just doesn't have.
    - edejong 6y ago
      I call that a failure of governance. A ship's bridge or a plane's cockpit might mostly be a place for slow decision making. However, in times of crisis, it should show off its true nature and effectivity.
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  You'll have to be a little more specific. Obviously no institution performed perfectly, but it was a novel situation.
  - bondarchuk 6y ago
    The danger is that there's a big "we know better than you" component to it, which is used to justify hiding the truth. For example it might be true that the population in general would be better off if we save the masks for nurses. Then, the government should say "don't wear a mask, we need them for nurses". They should not say "don't wear a mask, they don't work". Also it might even be true that wearing masks reduces distancing, on average. Then, the government should say "wear a mask but pay attention that you don't stop distancing", and not "don't wear a mask, they don't work". The paternalistic PR-minded reasoning goes like 1) What do we want people to do? 2) How do we get them to do it? The answer to 2 should always be simply explaining the reasoning for 1, even if it would be a little less effective than making up some lie. In the long run this builds trust in the government, instead of reducing it leading to a total breakdown of compliance because they lie all the time. The most dangerous and insidious thing about this dynamic, IMHO, is that a certain type of smart or self-identified elite person will go along with it, because they, too, believe that you can't just tell the truth to the general public (of which they don't consider themselves a part of course).
    - scoopertrooper 6y ago
      To be clear here, the CDC first issued guidance for the general community to wear masks on 3 April 2020, so about 2 months after the U.S declared a public health emergency. Even at the time the CDC gave its guidance, the published evidence to support the general public wearing masks was quite weak. Here is an extract from a systematic review of the published research from shortly after the CDC gave its guidance. > There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low‐moderate certainty of the evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub5/full https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... So the CDC was faced with a situation where there was minimal evidence for the efficacy of the general public wearing masks and a severe shortage of PPE among medical personnel. In that context, they held back recommending that the general public wear masks. It wasn't really till May/June that evidence started mounting in support of the general use of masks amongst the public. So there was no conspiracy, just hard working people trying to do their best in a difficult situation. The world is much more dull than people like to believe.

Consultant32452 6y ago

>...because it discourages compliance with interventions with known effectiveness It's been very disheartening watching so many of our essential institutions toss aside their credibility this last year. I wish I had to words to express how dangerous this is moving forward.

ThalesX 6y ago
I'm not from the US, but I feel the same way. The all powerful European Union just gives me a sense of despair after how they handled this crysis; I feel like I should start building my life with the assumption that I am alone in time of crysis.
- llampx 6y ago
  It showed me that failed German politicians go to the EU and become High-Ranking officials there, possibly because Germany is the most powerful country in the EU.
  - dmichulke 6y ago
    It showed me there are people in power that - together with an army of legal advisers - haven't ever read or written a single private economy delivery contract in their life. I don't know who else was involved but it certainly wasn't just von der Leyen, this was complete institutional failure. Probably as well the most effective Brexit propaganda you can imagine.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      Hardly. Vaccine procurement was never supposed to be a core EU competency. But the EU still managed to negotiate good faith contracts with a number of suppliers. Of those suppliers, only AstraZeneca acted with bad faith to excuse non-delivery. The other suppliers - having the sense to understand Covid is a global problem, not a national one - didn't. The UK then used its gamble on an untested schedule - the gap was originally supposed to be weeks, not months - to turn vaccination into a propaganda exercise. Meanwhile the British variant, which appeared because the UK failed to lock down properly in the first place, is still causing tens of thousands of deaths across the EU. Institutional failure you say? Indeed it is - on the British side. If the UK had acted rationally and responsibly a year ago, there would have been no need for vaccine nationalism.
      - the-dude 6y ago
        Is it possible you feel rejected? > to turn vaccination into a propaganda exercise. This is an absurd claim.
      - fakedang 6y ago
        Lol, keep kicking the ball to the other side while not seeing the EU's own mistakes. The UK started vaccinating its citizens right after Pfizer Phase 3 was confirmed. The US, UK and Israel are actually overpaying for the Pfizer vaccine, while the EU resorted to haggling on price. Of course, misers always get pushed to last.
      - makomk 6y ago
        This seems exactly backwards. The EU's involvement in vaccine and PPE procurement was at least partially a propaganda exercise to try and undo the damage done when member states with more manufacturing capacity cut off the supply to other states with a more desperate immediate need like Italy and the EU was impotent to stop it. Which was a potential existential threat - the whole purpose of the EU was to encourage trade and interdependence between European states and ban them from using protectionism to ensure the existence of local manufacturers, and now, when a crisis had hit, this was literally killing people Changing the vaccination schedule in the UK, on the other hand, was an informed gamble that - based on what was known about the vaccine at the time - would likely result in much fewer people dying and being hospitalized than sticking to the original, basically arbitrary, vaccination schedule. Also, blaming AstraZeneca for the EU falling behind the UK in vaccination is 100% pure propaganda. As far as I can tell, at this point their vaccine deliveries to the UK are about as far behind schedule as the ones to the EU, and the UK is a lot more reliant on AZ vaccinations than the EU. The EU just didn't order enough - their initial AZ order was about the same size as the UK one, for a much larger population, meaning they ended up with less production capacity relative to their population than the UK. The reason it seems like the UK vaccination scheme is going to plan is because the UK contract had contractual clauses with teeth requiring AZ to promptly notify them of how much they were actually going to deliver once they had their plants up and running, and the UK's plan was based on the actual delivery schedule. The EU... didn't. At all. I don't think they understand this even now, judging from all the conspiracy theories about how the yield problems are an excuse and AZ are really just sneaking off doses to the UK.
- estaseuropano 6y ago
  The EU is built for slown policy making, not crisis. There is a lot of complexity in wrangling 27 governments to take a joint decision that a single country just doesn't have.
  - edejong 6y ago
    I call that a failure of governance. A ship's bridge or a plane's cockpit might mostly be a place for slow decision making. However, in times of crisis, it should show off its true nature and effectivity.
scoopertrooper 6y ago
You'll have to be a little more specific. Obviously no institution performed perfectly, but it was a novel situation.
- bondarchuk 6y ago
  The danger is that there's a big "we know better than you" component to it, which is used to justify hiding the truth. For example it might be true that the population in general would be better off if we save the masks for nurses. Then, the government should say "don't wear a mask, we need them for nurses". They should not say "don't wear a mask, they don't work". Also it might even be true that wearing masks reduces distancing, on average. Then, the government should say "wear a mask but pay attention that you don't stop distancing", and not "don't wear a mask, they don't work". The paternalistic PR-minded reasoning goes like 1) What do we want people to do? 2) How do we get them to do it? The answer to 2 should always be simply explaining the reasoning for 1, even if it would be a little less effective than making up some lie. In the long run this builds trust in the government, instead of reducing it leading to a total breakdown of compliance because they lie all the time. The most dangerous and insidious thing about this dynamic, IMHO, is that a certain type of smart or self-identified elite person will go along with it, because they, too, believe that you can't just tell the truth to the general public (of which they don't consider themselves a part of course).
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    To be clear here, the CDC first issued guidance for the general community to wear masks on 3 April 2020, so about 2 months after the U.S declared a public health emergency. Even at the time the CDC gave its guidance, the published evidence to support the general public wearing masks was quite weak. Here is an extract from a systematic review of the published research from shortly after the CDC gave its guidance. > There is uncertainty about the effects of face masks. The low‐moderate certainty of the evidence means our confidence in the effect estimate is limited, and that the true effect may be different from the observed estimate of the effect. The pooled results of randomised trials did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks during seasonal influenza. https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub5/full https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... So the CDC was faced with a situation where there was minimal evidence for the efficacy of the general public wearing masks and a severe shortage of PPE among medical personnel. In that context, they held back recommending that the general public wear masks. It wasn't really till May/June that evidence started mounting in support of the general use of masks amongst the public. So there was no conspiracy, just hard working people trying to do their best in a difficult situation. The world is much more dull than people like to believe.